commissionerjg:
Barbara was always on top of things. He’d have liked to take some of the credit for her being as intelligent and quick as she was, but that was all her. Jim had done his best to be there, to be a dad alongside being a cop who spent most of his time at work, but once in awhile he regretted the things that he’d missed. He had tried to keep that to a minimum when she was young, but there’d been no way to get to every parent-teacher night or see her handed every single award. He knew that she understood, maybe it never even crossed her mind, but on days like that one it weighed on his.
As he saw her come out, Jim stepped out of his car and locked it behind him. He’d had to buy a new one in Star City for the first time in years and still wasn’t used to it. It wasn’t the kind of city where you could walk everywhere, and he didn’t want to take a squad car on personal business. Still, new models had bells and whistles he didn’t know what in the hell to do with. The seats warmed themselves. It was excessive.
“Hey, Pumpkin. You want a hand?” He walked toward her to take the handles of her chair, unless she warned him off. It depended on the day, usually. “I have the whole day.”
“I got it,” Barbara said easily, waving off the offer. It had never been easy for her to accept help, not even now, although she was getting better at it. There were times she understood that she didn’t have to do everything herself, but it was a difficult habit to break. She was used to managing everything for everyone. It was something she was good at, even thrived with, and she was good at it. Oracle felt just as natural as Batgirl. It challenged her in new ways, but she’d risen to the occasion. There hadn’t been a choice; it wasn’t like she’d ever been the type to feel sorry for herself.
For a few minutes she was quiet, content to enjoy the silence between them and the chilly night air. There wasn’t a lot of traffic, odd, but she knew it would be some time before people were used to not having a curfew. She was expecting an adjustment period.
Tilting her head back, she studied him quietly, the steep shadow of his glasses against his cheek, and thought that he looked much older than she remembered. “How are you doing?”














